PRIMAL FEAR Vocalist Ralf Scheepers On Drummer Randy Black: “He Laid Down The Whole Album In Five Days; I Was Blown Away”

Full Throttle Rock recently caught up with PRIMAL FEAR vocalist Ralf Scheepers to discuss the band’s new album, Delivering The Black. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Q: What are some of the things that you find the most inspiration from when writing a song or album?

RS: “You really get those things out of your head, your life experiences is a lot in the album, so about relationships, about divorces, feelings, pain, and also about politics here and there, not to be too serious about it, not to be too obvious, just bitching about it (laughs) and sometimes you have those warrior scenes as a metal band. So we do not want to write shitty lyrics, there is always a sense behind it, somebody had his ideas behind it, we want to say something of course too, so listen to the lyrics too, not just the music.”

Q: You have had a long working relationship with bassist/songwriter/producer Matt Sinner, you must feel very blessed to have him in your corner?

RS: “Absolutely, there is no doubt about it. We have grown together over the years, not only that he is my partner in business with Primal Fear, when we are owning the company, there is a lot of trust going on and that is a major thing, when it comes down to friendship as well, so we can really separate and divide personal and business topics. So that is amazing, I really get along well with Matt and you can always trust his opinion because he is always the guy that has been working the business for many, many years collecting knowledge and experience, just as myself too, so we just add up together as a good team.”

Q: The other members of the band, Magnus, Alex and Randy all put in blinding efforts on this new record as well, it must be great to have such talented musicians behind you?

RS: “There is no doubt about that and that is the reason why this album is so good now, everybody is the master on his instrument. What Randy (Black) did, I mean, I’ll tell you once again the demo was good already but it was programmed drums, I thought ‘How the hell should Randy do this? (laughs) then Randy came to … laid the whole album in 5 days and I was simply blown away. What this guy is doing on his drums is simply amazing and you talk about everybody, Magnus is the riff monster, a great lead guitarist, Alex with his feeling, also a great guitarist, so we have the best team together, absolutely.”

The clip below features Black laying down his tracks for the new song ‘Rebel Faction’, which appears on the band’s new album Delivering The Black. The footage was shot at House Of Music Studios in Winterbach, Germany:

Black: “Once again, I thought this might be interesting for Primal Fear fans and drum or studio geeks to hear the progression of sound from the RODE stereo mic 00:00 to 01:55, then direct raw mic signal from 01:55 to 02:52, and finally full CD quality sound from 02:52 to the end. This was the first Primal Fear session I did with my new custom Pearl Masters Premium Legend kit to record Primal Fear’s Delivering The Black CD.”

Delivering The Black has hit #16 on the Billboard Heatseekers (Top New Artist Albums) chart in the US, entered the official German album charts at #13, and has now hit the charts around the world:

Switzerland: #36
Austria: #64
Finland: #44
Sweden: #72
Japan: #48

Delivering The Black is available as a regular CD edition, deluxe edition with two bonus tracks and – in cooperation with Soulfood Music – vinyl edition and DVD and limited edition (666 copies only!) of a super-de-luxe version including a metallic eagle.